{{Short description|British novelist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''Dennis Arthur Parry''' (7{{nbsp}}November 1912{{snd}}21{{nbsp}}June 1955) was a British novelist. He died early as a result of a road accident, and none of his books were ever reprinted beyond a first edition until Valancourt Books reprinted ''The Survivor'' ({{ISBN|978-1941147368}}) and ''Sea of Glass'' ({{ISBN|978-1941147115}}), in 2014-2015.<ref>{{cite web|title=Dennis Parry|url=http://www.valancourtbooks.com/dennis-parry.html|publisher=Valancourt Books|accessdate=22 February 2016|archive-date=10 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160310031840/http://www.valancourtbooks.com/dennis-parry.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Critical reception== ''Kirkus Reviews'' said of ''The Survivor'': "An original and piquant idea, which can stand on its own feet without the link the publishers make for it to Dracula, Dr. Jekyll, etc. ... A strangely fascinating tale, but too uncanonical to appeal to as wide a public as predicted, I fear."<ref>{{cite news|title=The Survivor by Dennis Parry|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/dennis-parry/the-survivor-2/|accessdate=22 February 2016|work=Kirkus Reviews|date=8 January 1940|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303234824/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/dennis-parry/the-survivor-2/|url-status=live}}</ref>

A review of ''Sea of Glass'' published in ''The Times'' on 19 May 1955, a month before Parry's death, said that "Mr Parry writes with wit, ingenuity, and even a gift for surrealistic fantasy." (The same review also briefly noted "An unusual little fiction ... written by a 19-year-old girl from the Dordogne ... a nice piece of precosity": Francoise Sagan's ''Bonjour Tristesse'').<ref>{{cite news|title=The Old Adversary (book reviews)|url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=TTDA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28ke%2CNone%2C12%29dennis+parry%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F19%2F1955+-+12%2F31%2F1955%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=lancs&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=CS218584243&contentSet=UDVIN&callistoContentSet=UDVIN&docPage=article&hilite=y|accessdate=22 February 2016|work=The Times|date=19 May 1955|page=13|url-access=subscription|archive-date=19 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170819102201/http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/newspaperRetrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=DateAscend&tabID=T003&prodId=TTDA&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&searchType=BasicSearchForm&currentPosition=1&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28ke%2CNone%2C12%29dennis+parry%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F19%2F1955+-+12%2F31%2F1955%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&userGroupName=lancs&inPS=true&contentSet=LTO&&docId=&docLevel=FASCIMILE&workId=&relevancePageBatch=CS218584243&contentSet=UDVIN&callistoContentSet=UDVIN&docPage=article&hilite=y|url-status=live}}</ref> A reviewer in ''The Spectator'' was more critical: "A ramshackle plot has been assembled around a clutter of eccentrics ... all this energy, all this talent one feels needs more organisation than Mr Parry seems prepared to bring to them."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Metcalf|first1=John|title=New novels|url=http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/20th-may-1955/31/new-novels|accessdate=23 February 2016|work=The Spectator|date=19 May 1955|page=31|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303212011/http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/20th-may-1955/31/new-novels|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Personal life== Parry was educated at Rugby School and King's College, Cambridge where he read classics. He then turned to law and was called to the bar in 1936, practising in the Chancery Division. He was rejected for military service because of poor eyesight, and became a civil servant in the Air Ministry and subsequently the Ministry of Defence.<ref name=times />

His obituary in ''The Times'' described him as "author of a number of novels which have won both popular favour and critical acclaim".<ref name=times>{{cite news|title=Mr. Dennis Parry (obituary)|url=http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/newspaperRetrieve.do?sort=DateAscend&docLevel=FASCIMILE&prodId=TTDA&tabID=T003&bookId=&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&currentPosition=3&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28ke%2CNone%2C12%29dennis+parry%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F19%2F1955+-+12%2F31%2F1955%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&bucketSubId=&inPS=true&userGroupName=lancs&hilite=y&docPage=article&nav=next&docId=CS235492574&searchTypeName=BasicSearchForm&contentSet=LTO|accessdate=22 February 2016|work=The Times|date=30 June 1955|page=14|url-access=subscription|archive-date=3 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303130644/http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/newspaperRetrieve.do?sort=DateAscend&docLevel=FASCIMILE&prodId=TTDA&tabID=T003&bookId=&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&searchId=R1&currentPosition=3&qrySerId=Locale%28en%2C%2C%29%3AFQE%3D%28ke%2CNone%2C12%29dennis+parry%3AAnd%3ALQE%3D%28da%2CNone%2C23%2901%2F19%2F1955+-+12%2F31%2F1955%24&retrieveFormat=MULTIPAGE_DOCUMENT&bucketSubId=&inPS=true&userGroupName=lancs&hilite=y&docPage=article&nav=next&docId=CS235492574&searchTypeName=BasicSearchForm&contentSet=LTO|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Bibliography==

* ''Attic Meteor'' (1936) * ''The Bishop's Move, the Autobiography of Dio Lord Bishop of Melitene, Freely Translated from the Lost Original by Dennis Parry and H.M. Champness'' (1938, with H. M. Champness) * ''The Survivor'' (1940) * ''Atalanta's Case'' (1945) * ''Mooncalf'' (1947) * ''Outward Be Fair'' (1949) * ''Fair House of Joy'' (1950) * ''Going Up - Going Down'' (1953) * ''Horseman, Pass By'' (1954) * ''Sea of Glass'' (1955, published in the US as ''Varvara'', 1956)

==References== {{reflist}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Parry, Dennis}} Category:1912 births Category:1955 deaths Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Category:People educated at Rugby School Category:20th-century English novelists Category:English male novelists Category:British barristers Category:20th-century English male writers

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